3 years!

R and I went to Gloucester today, to see the Tall Ships Festival. It wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped it would be - largely because Gloucester Dockyard is absolutely massive, and it would take very many more than eight sizeable boats to fill it - but it was interesting and enjoyable nonetheless. There were some very good re-enactors on one of the ships, who proved especially photogenic. After walking around the docks we strolled up into the town in search of coffee and cake, and it was nice to see that special events were going on at different venues throughout the city centre.

I've put an album of photos here if you're interested. Should you be in the area, the Festival runs through till about 4pm on Bank Holiday Monday.

Back at home I couldn't resist breaking out the light pad again, and knowing that this was going to be my three-year Blipversary I thought it might be fun to play with that idea in creating my image. For those of you who are planning to try this technique, you may find as I did today that the quality of the ambient light has a bigger effect than you might expect: this is an HDR composite of bracketed shots taken at +2, +3 and +4 stops exposure. I used a wider aperture than yesterday's to reduce diffraction, but as the subject matter is so different, and the camera was much further away from the light pad, it's impossible to say whether the change of aperture had any effect on the sharpness of the image. The experiment will continue.

So there we are: three years of unbroken blipping. Many thanks to all of you who read my drivel and comment so generously on my photos - especially as I'm probably the community's least reliable blipmate. Thanks also to R, who has not only accommodated the reality of living with a daily photographer into his own routine, but who regularly makes good suggestions on potential subjects and offers sensible critique when (and only when) asked.

On to year four!!